Gabeed

One thing I've noticed in both Andromeda and Veilguard is a general upward tick in "bubbly" atmosphere, sometimes either expressed by its protagonist, or more concretely by its companions. Andromeda had a far more positive vibe than any of the original trilogy overall, and Liam and Peebee were slightly "zany" characters, though I don't think they are egregiously so (Liam sucks for other reasons than being "zany," per se). From what I've seen from Veilguard, it seems like this tone has only been emphasized.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with this in a vacuum, and it can work very well in the right kind of game, but both the Mass Effect series and the Dragon Age series are games where t

I don't claim that this is the best strategy ever, and I realize that the 5e/Bg3 Ranger is generally maligned, particularly if you're not doing some sort of multiclass with Gloomstalker.

That said:

The Colossus Slayer passive ability from the Hunter subclass of Ranger, which grants at 3rd level the ability to do an extra 1d8 damage each turn, works quite well with the Tenacity ability granted by greatclubs, flails, morningstars, and mauls. Not only does Colossus Slayer actually add damage to those attacks (unlike most other damage riders, crucially), but it does so regardless of whether the enemy is at full HP or not, because the first instance of damage is the Tenacity damage itsel

I read Fingerprints of the Gods years ago and found it borderline dishonest in how it presents its evidence and case studies. It is dismaying to me that so many people have such poor critical thinking that they fall for this stuff, to include Joe himself. And it was very satisfying for Flint Dibble to come on the podcast and show how archaeologists don't put stock in Hancock's wild theories, and why these theories are tantamount to a "God of the Gaps" but for Atlantis. Because Hancock couldn't refute the robust positive evidence of Ice Age life, agricultural evidence, pollen cores, etc. all he could do is complain about how archaeologists are mean to him. In this sense this podcast was a

Rust Cohle's Alaskan background in Season 1 has absolutely nothing to with the Tuttles. [Someone else in this subreddit nicely catalogued all of the Alaska references in Season 1 last week](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueDetective/comments/19dk1qe/rusttravisalaska_timeline_all_season_1_references/), so I encourage you to review those instances yourselves. When Rust takes a "leave of absence" to "visit his father who has leukemia" in Episode 4, for example, it is obvious within the confines of that episode that he gave the police/investigators a line so he could go undercover w

As many of you know, BGS has been leaving review comments defending the empty planets in Starfield (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/185uatu/bgs_answering_the_bad_reviews_on_steam/?share_id=UO3R8mXzp-axB2PChDuF5&utm_content=2&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1), to the chagrin and amusement of many. It seems like people have been responding to BGS' hamfisted comments by pointing out that Bethesda is being too simulationist by having empty p

I realize that gameplay-wise, people want to feel that the points that they put into Security to be immediately justified, and that when you spend a couple minutes in the mini-game, you want to be rewarded proportionately with super-cool loot or thousands of credits.

But that sort of gameplay model makes Security effectively a mandatory skill instead of one skill among many. I don't mind the basic principle behind the idea that locks of all kind, whether Novice or Master, can conceal anything from a king's riches, to a couple of barbells, or just nothing. It's inorganic from a simulationist point of view to expect that every single master lock automatically bathes you in credits, or with

One of the issues I've often had with RPGs lately is a juxtaposition between a narratively-urgent main plot and a game that clearly wants you to "map-paint" the world of content, wandering around doing side-quests and ignoring the main plot. In my experience, this has been a particularly pronounced problem among the highly-touted AAA RPGs of today.

In BG3, for example, you start the game with a mind flayer parasite in your head which is ostensibly threatening to turn you in a monster. Certainly there is something odd about the parasite in your head (in that you haven't felt the symptoms of ceremorphosis yet), but the main quest is to cure yourself of the parasite as quickly as possible ne

While I enjoy BG3 quite a lot overall, I think the first map of Act 1 is absolutely plagued by the plot urgency issues relating to Lae'zel and the crèche.

See, unless you're playing someone with 8 Wisdom, getting the tadpole out of your head should be of paramount importance initially. The Dream Guardian might persuade you one way or another once they arrive, but before you meet them, you should hardly be resting on your laurels just because you haven't felt any symptoms yet.

And amidst a map full of dubious cures, whether it be Halsin, the hag, or Priestess Gut--or Volo's deft touch--Lae'zel offers a much greater modicum of certainty. Go to the crèche, and the zaith'isk will remove the

I found Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny to be pretty mediocre overall. I'm not one of those culturally right wing Mauler/Critical Drinker types who have a weird fascination with Kathleen Kennedy. I don't think Helena's character is the main issue with the movie, nor do I think that Dial of Destiny "ruined the franchise."

But I've been lurking in this subreddit for the last couple weeks, and I can't say that I find the attitudes here much less contemptible, with an overall ceaseless and overly-defensive praise for a movie that has had a decidedly mixed response everywhere else (other than the probably-astroturfed Rotten Tomatoes audience score), and a general attitude that "any conte

One aspect of ME1 I really appreciate is that the RPG mechanics make Shepard comparable to his/her squadmates. If Shepard is a Soldier, he/she has skills which are identical to Ashley's skills, other than the points which can be put in Charm/Intimidate, the Spectre Training ranks, and the specialization ranks. Same thing if Shepard is a Sentinel--Kaidan has the exact same skills except for the skills listed above. Shepard is thus mechanically characterized as somewhat equivalent to his/her NPC comrades. The specialization allows Shepard to get a little bit better a single aspect of his/her choice, and the Spectre Training ranks and Charm/Intimidate give Shepard the unique ability to impr

Although Mass Effect 2 glosses over some of Cerberus' most evil and bloodthirsty actions (like Chasca, Edolus, or the murder of Admiral Kahoku) no matter which Shepard you play, and only retains criticism for the more "morally gray" evil scientist actions like experiments on Rachni and Thorian creepers, the handling of Akuze with a Sole Survivor Shepard is borderline nonsensical.

For those who need a reminder, Cerberus murders 50 Alliance marines on Akuze to do tests on thresher maws, and they experiment on Corporal Toombs thereafter. If he/she is a Sole Survivor psychological profile, Shepard is the "sole" survivor of this massacre and it is due to his/her survival that the Council consid

It seems like more and more posts and comments show up on here these days (and indeed have shown up for a couple years) clamoring for the ability to play as an alien in ME4. Obviously some of this derives from the ME3 multiplayer, but given it being a relatively recent trend, I think Andromeda might be partially if not largely to blame here--all the "weirder" aliens like the elcor and hanar got left out of the game, and the more "normal" aliens were ubiquitous, and acted entirely human when you talked with them. Vetra, for example, was a turian, but seemed effectively human to me. Her main conflict in Andromeda was her dealing with being a "big sister" in a manner which revealed absolutely

Hi everyone, today I want to inundate you with a big ol' block of text about big decision points in the Mass Effect series.

I want to do this by comparing a big decision that the protagonist has to make in ME1 with a big decision the protagonist has to make in Mass Effect: Andromeda. The objective here is to illustrate why worldbuilding and context matters in terms of crafting a satisfying choice. One might suggest that implicit in this comparison is showing how Bioware’s writing quality has deteriorated over time. I’ve picked the Rachni decision from ME1 and the Voeld Facility decision from Andromeda—two choices which don’t have immediate serious impact on the narrative of the game, but i

Miranda Lawson was one of my favorite characters in ME2. It was rather disappointing to me that she had such a minor role in ME3. I'm not alone in this opinion--the sidelining of the ME2 squadmates is a common ME3 complaint, and Miranda's role in ME3, which mostly just rehashes stuff that she talked about in ME2 (the control chip, her father, her sister, etc etc), stands as a particularly egregious example of ME2 squadmate sidelining, particularly since we're fighting Cerberus throughout ME3 and she was a top lieutenant of the Illusive Man.

And whenever Miranda's role in ME3 is discussed on this subreddit, it is practically inevitable that someone parrots the long-held belief that Yvonne